I have a PS3, PSP and PC with Vista Home Premium and Windows Media Player 11. I do not wish to install another DLNA software on my PC.

Having said that, here's what I would like to accomplish:

I have 50 Blu-Ray's and 200 DVDs that I own. I would like to put them on a hard drive that is accessible to my PC. Then stream the contents to the PS3. In addition, I want to be able to remote play the PS3 with the PSP (which I know how to do already. So, we can really take that step out of the process).

Let's start with the 200 DVDs:

Is there a way to take the raw .vob file from each DVD and convert it so that it is a single file on the PC that is streamable to the PS3?

If the above is possible, which FREE software is good for doing this?

If the above is possible, what is the BEST encoding codec I should use to get the BEST quality and the BEST compression?

I would like the final video to be 480p with 5.1 audio if possible.

Now, let's talk about the 50 Blu-Ray's I have:

I can capture (via analog component) the 1080i output of the PS3 into my PC (with analog stereo audio). Once captured, I'd like to encode the videos into something that can stream from my PC to the PS3.

What is the BEST encoding codec I should use to get the BEST quality and the BEST compression?

I would like the final video to be 1080i with stereo audio if possible.

Here are the supported PS3 video formats listed on the official Sony us.playstation.com web site:

I would also like to note that what I am doing above is NOT illegal and is NOT piracy. I have purchased EVERY disc mentioned above either in a retail store (such as Best Buy, Circuit City, Walmart or Target) or online at major e-tailers (such as Amazon or DVDempire) and I will NOT be sharing these files with anybody other than the family members living in my home.

Take your DVDs and either losslessly convert them to mpg2 files or convert them to mpg4 AVC files.

Then you need to get WMP to catalog and serve those files. That isn't easy with version 11. Other DLNA servers can do this very easily. But if you want to use WMP, try following these instructions to see if they will work for you.

The Zune software was also supposed to update WMP so that it could find and index mp4 files. You might want to research that some.

Then you need to get WMP to catalog and serve those files. That isn't easy with version 11. Other DLNA servers can do this very easily. But if you want to use WMP, try following these instructions to see if they will work for you.

I'm already serving up my mp3 files. Is this process any different than that?

First of you have to extract the movie from the DVDs (and Blurays) into a suitable format for archiving. For DVDs, you may already know that the encoding for the video is MPEG-2 with AC3 (also called A52 and Dolby Digital). Therefore, to preserve MPEG video quality (lossless as previously mentioned), you need to extract that MPEG-2 video and AC3 audio to a container format of your choosing: MPEG/MPG, TS or VOB. As you may have guessed, the resulting MPEG, TS or VOB files will be HUGE - upwards to several GBs each! I recommend you buy a NAS drive that is at least 4TB (Tera-Bytes) capacity. Then hook that NAS to your PC or your Gigabit Ethernet network at home.

I do not know of hand which of these are most compatible with your Sony devices. But since you will be using DLNA, my best guess would be MPEG or VOB. There are many good applications to rip your collections to the PC/NAS drive. One of these is a freebie called MPEG Streamclip ( http://www.squared5.com ) and is compatible for PC and MAC. MPEG Streamclip does many things well like merging and demuxing MPEG files. It can also trim unwanted sections of a movie clip. It's best feature, of course, is ripping unprotected DVDs into MPEG files. Make sure the DVD has no copy-protection when using with MPEG Streamclip though because it may fail to rip a Title properly. If you are not familiar with DVD hierarchy the sections are called Titles and a movie may comprise of one or many titles. Experiment first beforehand for the best format for your Sony products.

On the PC, Windows Media Server should be able to stream MPEG, TS, and VOB. I use all of these file container formats on my demo setup at work but DLNA on the Samsung, Pioneer and Sony TVs all act different as to which file they recognize and play without any artifacts or warnings. Experiment which of these container formats best support your setup. DLNA, as a protocol, is pretty limited as to which file container+video encoding+audio encoding it supported and each device that say it is "DLNA" compliant may only support a fraction of the full DLNA specification.

I have found MacX DVD Ripper Pro and Video Converter Pro (by Digi-Arty at http://www.macxdvd.com ). Contrary to the name it is also available for Windows PCs. I have bought the package for both my Mac Pro and Windows 7 Ultimate laptop at home and they are very capable of reading (even copy-protected) DVDs to MPEG files for archiving. Like you, I own over 200+ DVDs that I now store in my home NAS DLNA server. Then I use Plex (similar to DLNA) to stream the movies to the Roku XS boxes in every room in the house. Works very well in parallel to the DLNA server (Twonky Media Server, I think).

If you have to encode your MPEG archives to MPEG-4/AVC (also called H.264 and MPEG-4 Part 10) to save on drive space or lower the bit-rates or for compatibility with Windows Media Server, try Handbrake because it's the best FREE encoder for MP4 and MKV container out there - unless you know how to manipulate FFMPEG from the command line console, that is. Handbrake is based on FFMPEG and other libraries so it is very good - and did I mention, FREE?

Well, have fun ripping and encoding. Once you're in the digital video streaming Matrix - you will never go back....

I have found that streaming with the PS3 is less than ideal for most all video formats. I gave up long ago and built an HTPC for those duties. I rip my DVDs and BDs to MKV using MakeMKV (yes, it's free) and easily stream to the HTPC. You can do the same with PS3MS on a PC running to convert the format, but you said this wasn't your goal.

It's too bad there isn't a Boxee app for our devices. Boxee Server (free) and Boxee client on iOS (iPad, iPhone) works beautifully. This is the kind of functionality I'd like to see on the PS3.

I just tested MKV container movies (IMAX 1080p HD content) encoded in MPEG4/AVC/H.264 video and MP4 audio and it plays well with the new Sony BD/DLNA players in my work demo. These movie files are stored in a Buffalo NAS server with Twonky media server as the DLNA server. Works very well with four 1080p displays via DLNA streams over a virtual home setup (bedrooms, living room, kitchen, fam room, etc.). The older Pioneer Elite displays with earlier DLNA have trouble with MKVs but AVI, MPG, MPEG and even VOB works...

I know there are a million programs out there to make MKV files but Handbrake is one of the best and it's free. The one I mentioned above, MacX DVD Ripper and Video Converter Pro, can also make very good MKV backups of your DVDs with minimal effort.

The original thread poster only wants to use the existing DLNA players in his Sony devices and the Windows Media Server in his PC. Adding a NAS connected to that PC would certainly make his setup into a nice way of streaming content throughout his house.